Sunday, March 28, 2010

Ectoplasm

I could never be a fraudulent psychic. It takes a dedication and willing swarthiness that I don't think I could muster.

Case in point: Ectoplasm. Ectoplasm is defined by Dictionary.com as "The visible substance believed to emanate from the body of a spiritualistic medium during communication with the dead" and "An immaterial or ethereal substance, especially the transparent corporeal presence of a spirit or ghost." During the Spiritualist Movement's heyday from the 1840's to 1920's, many seance mediums claimed to be able to produce the gooey substance from their orifices. And when I say orifices I mean any and all orifices. And when I saw all orifices, I mean the orifices even Skinamax wouldn't show.

What really freaks me out about the whole thing is that the shyster mediums used cheese cloth to mimic the ectoplasm. I'm going to be honest, I'd never even heard of cheese cloth before I discovered this fact. It sounds delicious. I would eat a cheese cloth burger in a second. But can you imagine shoving something up your hoo-ha just to make someone believe you were in touch with the dead? It's gross and it's brilliant. Who's going to check? Here's a sentence that's never been uttered in all of human history: "Excuse me, but is that cheese cloth dangling out of your butt-hole?" Say it to someone at a bar sometime. If that person doesn't punch you or call the cops, run for your life. Because that person is hiding something up their pooper and it's dangerous enough to keep restrained in a sack.

Apparently this whole debacle went on for a number of years before people started to catch on to the truth. I think the worst part would be the inevitable drudgery of the whole thing. "Ugggg, it's Tuesday. Time to stick some more cheese-cloth up my ass. I shoulda been a zookeeper."